This show was Western Hymn (Olympia, WA), Street Eaters (Oakland, CA), Songs for Moms (Oakland, CA), and Audacity (San Pedro, CA) with Todd Congelliere playing with them. Pretty awesome lineup and for most of the bands, there was a decent sized crowd (though it’s pretty hard to fill a basement in Olympia in the Summer). The touring bands were all on their way to play TOTAL FEST in Missoula, MT. Really nice folks all around.
Lemuria were super cool. I didn’t hear them play a lot of my favorites, but it was still a good show. I only half succeeded in starting the MOSH in Florida style for their benefit (that’s a joke, folks – but I did boogie down, of course). Read more »
Good Luck (Bloomington, IN) played in Olympia, WA tonight at the Northern (the Olympia All-Ages Project) with Kimya Dawson (OLY) and Your Heart Breaks (Clyde from Seattle, WA). Read more »
Frightened Rabbit played Neumo’s in Seattle on Sunday night. They’re a pretty great indie rock band, they remind me of most of what I liked about The Wedding Present, but with a little more early U2 influence or something. Read more »
No Bunny (CA) played the Northern on Tuesday. They’ve got a pretty bearable mix of garage rock and weirdness. Read more »
Western Hymn (OLY) has really got something going. They’re great. Picked up a few of their self-released LP to send to friends. They’ve just started a West Coast tour. Read more »
Battleshark by Jeff London (Fay Wray, King Friday)
rumored to be taken from the front page of the “Fine Arts” section of the sunday edition of the New York Times….
Jeff London’s ”Battleshark,” is a fiercely romantic, mesmerizing tour de force. His drawing is overwhelming. And the effect is one of dizzying incongruity, as if all the conventions of ordinary life had been suspended. With Jeff’s depiction, the world has palpably been turned upside down.
Even more torrid than the underwater weather of his scene, is the erotic pull that draws this battleshark epic adventure, an elegant diver who is helping to preside over the bed of the sea, to the ornate window behind which this handsome, obsessed shark hides. He longs to lure the diver away for one of the trysts that fill this haunting drawing with its intricate array of memories. ”Swoon,” battleshark whispers ardently. ”I’ll catch you.” The diver does swoon. No wonder.
”Battleshark,” a stunning feat of visual adaptation as well as a purely artistic triumph, begins long after Battleshark’s love affair has come to a terrible end. The diver of the sketch, who once pursued battleshark with such intensity, has been literally consumed by water and heat. Scarred beyond recognition, the diver stands in a bombed-out sea floor/monastery in the waning days of World War II and is tended by battleshark, posing as a luminous nurse with a noose. Jeff London’s battleshark performs near-miracles. So does Jeff’s penmanship as he weaves extravagant beauty around a central character whose condition is so grotesque…that he can only be realized as the one and only…the “true” battleshark.
